Early Childhood Studies

Biography:

Kenise Murphy Kilbride, Professor Emerita and Adjunct Professor in the School of Early Childhood Studies at Ryerson University, is the Senior Scholar at CERIS – The Ontario Metropolis Centre. Her doctorate in sociology was received from Fordham University in New York, where her studies and teaching included issues of immigration and integration, interests that had arisen from her earlier experience as a high school teacher working with Spanish-speaking migrant families and youth in the American Midwest. With Dr. Carl Amrhein from the University of Toronto and Dr. Michael Lanphier of York University, she co-authored the proposal to create CERIS (originally the Joint Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement).

Dr. Kilbride's work at Ryerson University included teaching, research, and writing in areas related to education and the needs of diverse populations. This work provided such outcomes as the 1990 provincial training programs in multicultural education for community college faculty and early childhood educators; the 1997 book, "Include me Too!" Human diversity in early childhood; with York University sociologist Dr. Paul Anisef, the 2003 book, Managing Two Worlds: The experiences and concerns of immigrant youth in Ontario; and in 2002, the design of Canada's first graduate program in this field: the Master's Degree Program in Immigration and Settlement Studies at Ryerson University. Her book with Dr. Anisef is based upon their research on the needs and concerns of immigrant youth and their families; most recently her work has included the special needs of immigrants who are homeless and those of immigrant women who have difficulty in acquiring proficiency in English. Dr. Kilbride's community work also keeps her close to her original interests: she spent many years on, and at various times has chaired, the Boards of the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto and the Daily Bread Food Bank.